These are thoughts that I’ve been sharing over at Between Two Worlds on a post called Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammed?
My answer? Of course not. Here are some points in no particular order:
1) Let’s let Allah define himself:
“He does not beget nor is he begotten.” (Sura 112)
The Quran defines the god of Islam explicitly as not the God of the Bible. Let’s respect Muslims enough to let them define who their god is. He is not the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We honour their faith by speaking of Allah as another god – that is how Allah defines himself. From our perspective we cannot speak of Allah as anything other than an idol – anything else fails to take Muslim faith on its own terms.
2) Can anyone really imagine the prophets addressing the Edomites, Philistines etc saying ‘Yahweh is very much like Baal/Molech/Asherah’??! Never!
The question for the nations is not ‘Do you believe in God?’ But ‘What god do you believe in?’ Whether you’re evangelizing in north Africa or north America “God” cannot be assumed. In fact “God” is the least obvious word in our evangelistic encounters. How on earth do we get to a position where people make it the point of commonality!
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At this point a commenter replied that the ‘Baal’ analogies do not work because Allah is thought to be ‘the transcendent Creator’ and not simply a power within the world. He claimed that a Muslim convert would have to repent of many beliefs but not his belief in ‘God as infinite transcendent Creator.’
To this I replied…
3) We don’t say “Baal is called ‘Lord’ and receives worship therefore no convert from Baalism needs to repent of their notions of Lorship or worship.” Of course they will have to repent of all of this. So then why would anyone claim that a belief in the ‘infinite transcendent Creator’ is of a different order? Fundamentally I see this as committing two errors. It is to say…
A) ‘Transcendent Creator’ is more foundational to God’s being than His triunity.
B) The Muslim means roughly the same as the Christian when speaking of the ‘Transcendent Creator’
I strongly disagree with both.
A) i) If God is transcendent Creator you’ve made Him dependent on creation.
A) ii) It is a position that leads to Arianism. Athanasius complained that Arius’ error was to conceive of God as Unoriginate and then to consider trinity. On this trajectory he could never affirm the homo-ousios of One whose being was ‘ek tes ousia tw patri‘ (out of the being of the Father). Similarly if your conversation with a Muslim begins with some ‘bedrock’ notion of transcendence before introducing them to Jesus it will necessarily mean introducing them to one who is less than the transcendent one. You’ll have shot yourself in the foot from the very beginning. Let’s not define Jesus out of full deity before we’ve even begun. We therefore must not begin on the Arian trajectory of affirming transcendent Creator first – Jesus will not come out very well from such a starting point!
B) Only the God who exists as Himself in relations of otherness can actually have a relationship with creation in which we can know Him as transcendent. ‘Transcendent Creator’ is dependent on trinity (not the other way around). The Muslim account of transcendence is completely confused (as is every unitarian account). Allah is a prisoner of his ‘transcendence’ – by definition cut off from any relationship with it (whether transcendent or immanent).
‘Transcendent Creator’ is neither the foundational nor a shared understanding of the living God. And it’s not desirable that it should be.
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At this point my interlocutor (rightly) suspected I was denying the possiblity of true philosophical reflection on divinity apart from Christian revelation. He claimed I was being overly Barthian ;-) I replied with these points…
4) In terms of theological method, “Christ alone” is not a Barthian novelty! It’s difficult to think of a more crucial verse in the history of the church for theological method than Matthew 11:27: “No-one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.”
To this let’s add John 1:18; 14:6 and Colossians 1:15. To this let’s add the continual Scriptural witness that we are blind, dead, enemies of God unable to know Him apart from His Word to us. (e.g. Ps 14:2; 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:21). These plain and central truths cannot be evaded by crying ‘Barthian’!
5) Nicea’s “The Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth” was a deliberate and crucial choice of order. Triunity precedes creation. Of course it does – unless we want to define God as dependent upon creation.
6) Even Jews who have the Scriptures do not know the Father if they reject the Son. (cf ALL OF JOHN’S GOSPEL!)
7) To go over a previous point – there are tremendous Arian dangers of considering ‘Creator’ more foundational than trinity. Once you have assured your Muslim friend that she really does know God and that the God she knows is definitionally the infinite, transcendent Creator, do you really think you’ve helped her towards faith in Jesus of Nazareth?? Have you not just given her every reason to reject divine honours (thus defined) being attributed to Christ. Won’t she simply thank you for confirming her own doctrine of God which by definition precludes Jesus from being anything more than a prophet??
Athanasius rightly said ‘the only system of thought into which Jesus Christ will fit is the one in which He is the starting point.’
The Rock upon which we build is nothing and no-one else but Christ. Let’s be clearer on this whether we’re evangelizing Muslims or our friends in the pub. They do not know God and besides – why would we want to confirm for them a sterile, non-relational doctrine of God in the first place?? Let’s tell them, ‘The god you had thought existed was not God – let me tell you about the living God who is unlike anything you’ve imagined. His name is Jesus and He blows your god out of the water!’
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Glen,
I’m trying hard to make sure that our comments on one anothers’ blogs aren’t shallow back-slapping, but I must say this is great.
Thanks for this. On a previous post at ‘BTW’, I tried arguing this stuff a bit- but not so articulately.
Good work.
Dan
that’s alright Dan, you can call me a jerk next comment. That’ll spice things up. ;-)
Really the whole discussion is not about Islam per se. It’s basically about trinitarian theology. So I’m not surprised you’re in agreement! Basically debating Muslims for a couple of years at Speaker’s Corner convinced me that any doctrine of God that didn’t include Jesus at the outset could never accommodate Him down the track.
Glen,
excellent. I read your comments over at Justin’s site . . . and you are right on to emphasize the economy as the immanent nature of God.
Fr. Kimel (Pontificator) is a thomist, as far as I can see, through and through . . . which bleeds right into his soteriology as a Catholic.
isn’t it simply ‘logical’ that only the One Who knows God can make Him known?
therefore the One Who knows God would have to have been with God (at His Father’s side) and be sent from God by God?
thus unless the Word of God was God Himself, as opposed to prophets or ‘angels’ it would be rather nonsensical?
for although the latter see God they do not know God and are quite rightly puzzled (or offended) at His works
so it is quite a puzzle with things like this:
http://www.acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en&page=option1
and quite deserving of a response like this?
Bobby, just read Fr. Kimel’s page called ‘Allah’ at Pontifications. 80% of the paper is an argument for how Jesus is constitutive of God and the immanent trinity is the economic and vice versa. 80% of the paper is an argument for why Allah can’t be the living God. But he just can’t seem to follow his own logic.
Dev, ‘God alone is a fit witness to Himself’ has been axiomatic throughout church history.
Love Piper’s youtube response – especially the ‘year book’ illustration at 5 minutes. Well worth checking out.
A question:
When I read your post, I was puzzled by this wording: “We honour their faith by speaking of Allah as another god – that is how Allah defines himself.” My thought was, why is he granting objective reality to Allah?
Then I remembered that in the Bible the Lord sometimes seems to be deeming objective reality to “other gods” eg Ex 15:11, 1 Kings 8:25, Deut 10:17, Ps 82:1, and probably other places as well.
So the question is, why does God ever seem to be grouping Himself in a category with other gods?
Generally speaking I tend to favor your position over that of Pontificator.
Hi Otepoti,
Probably the first thing to say is that the sentence you quote was phrased more for rhetorical effect than theological precision! I can see why you would ask the question you did and I think if I wrote it again I’d probably rephrase it to: “that is how the Quran defines Allah so let’s honour their book and allow it to mean what it says.”
But having said that you raise an interesting issue. 1 Corinthians 8 is fascinating isn’t it?
“So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”
Idols are nothing but then he goes on to say they are not just called gods but *are* gods. And then in chapter 10 he says pagan sacrifices are offered to demons. (1 Cor 10:20). And you want to say ‘Are they nothing or are they something or are they demons?’ And perhaps Paul would say yes to all three. Not sure how we co-ordinate all those truths – perhaps others have done some more thinking on this and can help? What do you think Otepoti?
Abu Daoud, it’s good to have you here. I was enjoying your blog for the first time yesterday. I hope to visit many more times!
God bless,
Glen
Thinking hard, but everyone is sick here today, so there’s not much time.
Perhaps the Lord in mercy allows this sort of “my God beats your god” thinking to new but still fearful converts as a transitional step out of paganism? I can see that if you converted from (say) animism, you might need some extra reassurance that God is powerful enough to overcome the vengeful spirit in the next bush you pass.
You do seem to be offering this thinking yourself with “His name is Jesus and He blows your god out of the water!
Nga mihi ki a koutou ko tou whanau, greetings to you and your family.
[...] March, 2008 by glenscriv In talking about Allah as an idol the question comes ‘If Allah is a false god, does that make him nothing? something? a [...]
[...] top of their lungs that the Creator of heaven and earth is God, still, while repudiating Christ, substitute an idol in place of the true God. [...]
Hi
Just a thought, (curious but not intending to be contentious). -
What about all the Old Testament saints who loved God but had no clear revelation that he would manifest as Jesus. How would they define the same God without reference to Jesus?
I ask this because the revealing of God through the history of the OT was gradual. His name (or description) changed as different people had further revelation and interaction with him.
When the disciples asked Jesus, show us the father, his reply was “if you have seen me, you have seen the father.”
ie He was not rebuking them for their lack of understanding of the father, but their lack of understanding that He, Jesus was One with the One who they already knew.
Hi again
Maybe I should have spent more time looking at your other stuff.
After doing the above comment, I found your “Christ in the Old Testament, which is where I intended heading with the above comment.
Excellent stuff, I need more time to read the whole lot.
Bob
Hi Bob,
Welcome to the comments. Glad to hear from you.
Yes, well spotted on the Christ in the OT front. As I see it, my position on this issue and my position on Christ in OT flow out of the more fundamental point that Christ *is* the Truth – true knowledge of God begins with Him rather than heads towards Him. At the most basic level this is what drives me to these two conclusions – i.e.
1) *true* OT religion was always Messianic
and
2) knowledge of Allah is in no sense knowledge of the living God
There are many who disagree with my stance on 1) but agree with me on 2). On the other hand, I can’t imagine people agreeing with me on 1) but denying 2) – but who knows – it’s a crazy, mixed up world.
Yet for me they all pretty much go together – Christ is the Rock who needs no smaller stepping stones to bridge up to Him. That kind of thing.
Love to hear more of your thoughts. Feel free to comment on anything around the traps.
Glen